IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2011-204.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

South Africa: The Cyclical Behavior of the Markups and its Implications for Monetary Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Nir Klein

Abstract

The study looks at the cyclical behavior of the markups and assesses its impact on inflation dynamics. The analysis finds that the aggregate level of the private sector's markup is relatively high, thus pointing to the lack of strong competition in South Africa's product markets. Additionally, the results suggest that the markups tend to move in a countercyclical manner, with a short-term positive impact on inflation. This implies that the countercyclical pattern of the markups is one factor among others that contribute to the relatively weak output gap-inflation co-movement. In the context of South Africa's inflation targeting framework, the counter-cyclical markups may also generate an asymmetric response of monetary policy to the fluctuations in economic activity.

Suggested Citation

  • Nir Klein, 2011. "South Africa: The Cyclical Behavior of the Markups and its Implications for Monetary Policy," IMF Working Papers 2011/204, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2011/204
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=25185
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barro, Robert J & Gordon, David B, 1983. "A Positive Theory of Monetary Policy in a Natural Rate Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(4), pages 589-610, August.
    2. Robert S. Chirinko & Steven M. Fazzari, 2000. "Market Power and Inflation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(3), pages 509-513, August.
    3. Banerjee, Anindya & Russell, Bill, 2005. "Inflation and measures of the markup," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 289-306, June.
    4. Katharine S. Neiss, 2001. "The markup and inflation: evidence in OECD countries," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 34(2), pages 570-587, May.
    5. Haskel, Jonathan & Martin, Christopher & Small, Ian, 1995. "Price, Marginal Cost and the Business Cycle," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 57(1), pages 25-41, February.
    6. Johannes Fedderke & Chandana Kularatne & Martine Mariotti, 2007. "Mark-up Pricing in South African Industry," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 16(1), pages 28-69, January.
    7. Philippe Aghion & Matias Braun & Johannes Fedderke, 2008. "Competition and productivity growth in South Africa," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 16(4), pages 741-768, October.
    8. Machin, Stephen & Van Reenen, John, 1993. "Profit Margins and the Business Cycle: Evidence from UK Manufacturing Firms," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 29-50, March.
    9. Christopher Bowdler & Eilev S. Jansen, 2004. "Testing for a time-varying price-cost markup in the Euro area inlation process," Working Paper 2004/9, Norges Bank.
    10. Steinsson, Jon, 2003. "Optimal monetary policy in an economy with inflation persistence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(7), pages 1425-1456, October.
    11. Joaquim Oliveira Martins & Stefano Scarpetta, 1999. "The Levels and Cyclical Behaviour of Mark-ups Across Countries and Market Structures," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 213, OECD Publishing.
    12. Macallan, Clare & Millard, Stephen & Parker, Miles, 2008. "The cyclicality of mark-ups and profit margins for the United Kingdom: some new evidence," Bank of England working papers 351, Bank of England.
    13. Roeger, Werner, 1995. "Can Imperfect Competition Explain the Difference between Primal and Dual Productivity Measures? Estimates for U.S. Manufacturing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(2), pages 316-330, April.
    14. Fedderke, Johannes & Szalontai, Gábor, 2009. "Industry concentration in South African manufacturing industry: Trends and consequences, 1972-96," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 241-250, January.
    15. Gottfries, Nils, 1991. "Customer Markets, Credit Market Imperfections and Real Price Rigidity," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 58(231), pages 317-323, August.
    16. Benabou, Roland, 1992. "Inflation and markups : Theories and evidence from the retail trade sector," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(2-3), pages 566-574, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kabundi, Alain & Mlachila, Montfort, 2019. "The role of monetary policy credibility in explaining the decline in exchange rate pass-through in South Africa," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 173-185.
    2. Charl Jooste & Yaseen Jhaveri, 2014. "The Determinants of Time-Varying Exchange Rate Pass-Through in South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 82(4), pages 603-615, December.
    3. World Bank Group, 2016. "South Africa Economic Update, February 2016," World Bank Publications - Reports 23762, The World Bank Group.
    4. Mehmet Balcilar & Rangan Gupta & Theshne Kisten, 2020. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks in South Africa: The Role of Financial Regimes," Working Papers 202046, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    5. Mustafa Utku Özmen, 2020. "In Pursuit Of Understanding Markups In Restaurant Services Prices," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 65(06), pages 1423-1437, December.
    6. Alain Kabundi & Asi Mbelu, 2018. "Has the Exchange Rate Pass‐Through changed in South Africa?," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 86(3), pages 339-360, September.
    7. Chris Redl, 2018. "Macroeconomic Uncertainty in South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 86(3), pages 361-380, September.
    8. Alain N. Kabundi & Mr. Montfort Mlachila, 2018. "Monetary Policy Credibility and Exchange Rate Pass-Through in South Africa," IMF Working Papers 2018/173, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Liew, Freddy, 2012. "Forecasting inflation in Asian economies," MPRA Paper 36781, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Fedderke, Johannes W., 2018. "Exploring unbalanced growth: Understanding the sectoral structure of the South African economy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 177-189.
    11. Justyna Kufel-Aid, 2016. "Power Market in The Polish Food Sector Branches and The Competition Policy," International Conference on Competitiveness of Agro-food and Environmental Economy Proceedings, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, vol. 5, pages 83-94.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Salman Ahmad & Attiya Yasmin Javid, 2015. "Analysing the Price Cost Markup and Its Behaviour over the Business Cycles in Case of Manufacturing Industries of Pakistan," PIDE-Working Papers 2015:117, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    2. Fedderke, Johannes W., 2018. "Exploring unbalanced growth: Understanding the sectoral structure of the South African economy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 177-189.
    3. Mustafa Utku Özmen, 2020. "In Pursuit Of Understanding Markups In Restaurant Services Prices," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 65(06), pages 1423-1437, December.
    4. Stan du Plessis & Nico Katzke & Evan Gilbert & Chris Hart, 2015. "Mark-ups and competition: a comparison of the profitability of listed South African industrial companies," Working Papers 02/2015, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    5. Holger Görg & Frédéric Warzynski, 2006. "The Dynamics of Price Cost Margins: Evidence from UK Manufacturing," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 97(5), pages 303-318.
    6. Fernandez, Leon & Pagliacci, Carolina, 2016. "The markup and aggregate fluctuations in Venezuela. Testing distributional shocks," MPRA Paper 106538, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Philippe Aghion & Johannes Fedderke & Peter Howitt & Nicola Viegi, 2013. "Testing creative destruction in an opening economy," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 21(3), pages 419-450, July.
    8. Chandana Kularatne & Johannes W. Fedderke & Nicola Viegi & Peter W. Howitt & Philippe Aghion, 2008. "Testing creative destruction in an opening economy: the case of the South African manufacturing industries," Working Papers 093, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    9. Fedderke, Johannes W. & Hill, Andrew J., 2011. "Industry structure and labor market flexibility in the South African manufacturing sector: A time series and panel data approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 1291-1302, May.
    10. Philippe Aghion & Matias Braun & Johannes Fedderke, 2008. "Competition and productivity growth in South Africa," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 16(4), pages 741-768, October.
    11. Johannes Fedderke & Yang Liu, 2018. "Inflation in South Africa: An Assessment of Alternative Inflation Models," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 86(2), pages 197-230, June.
    12. J.W. Fedderke & E. Schaling, 2005. "Modelling Inflation In South Africa: A Multivariate Cointegration Analysis," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 73(1), pages 79-92, March.
    13. Asli Gunay & Kivilcim Metin-Ozcan & Erinc Yeldan, 2005. "Real wages, profit margins and inflation in Turkish manufacturing under post-liberalization," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(16), pages 1899-1905.
    14. Ad van Riet & Moreno Roma, 2006. "Competition, productivity and prices in the euro area services sector," Occasional Paper Series 44, European Central Bank.
    15. Jonsson, Magnus & Palmqvist, Stefan, 2003. "Inflation, Markups and Monetary Policy," Working Paper Series 148, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    16. Joshua Budlender, 2019. "Markups and market structure in South Africa: What can be learnt from new administrative data?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-58, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Ian Small, 1997. "The cyclicality of Mark-ups and Profit Margins: Some Evidence for Manufacturing and Services," Bank of England working papers 72, Bank of England.
    18. Flora Bellone & Patrick Musso & Lionel Nesta & Frédéric Warzynski, 2009. "L'effet pro-concurrentiel de l'intégration européenne. Une analyse de l'évolution des taux de marge dans les industries manufacturières françaises," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(1), pages 139-163.
    19. Dobrinsky, Rumen & Korosi, Gabor & Markov, Nikolay & Halpern, Laszlo, 2006. "Price markups and returns to scale in imperfect markets: Bulgaria and Hungary," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 92-110, March.
    20. Bennett T. McCallum & Edward Nelson, 2004. "Timeless perspective vs. discretionary monetary policy in forward-looking models," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 86(Mar), pages 43-56.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2011/204. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.